On Monday, June 6, the opening ceremony for ANAKONDA 16 took place at the Polish National Defense University in Warsaw.  Owing to the direct support of U.S. Embassy Skopje, the Army of the Republic of Macedonia (ARM) is participating in ANAKONDA 16 with 157 soldiers from the 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the Military Police Battalion, and the Special Operations Regiment in order to strengthen interoperability with Armed Forces from the U.S. and NATO, and improve its ability to support international operations in a multinational environment. ANAKONDA 16 is one of seven exercises this year in which the ARM will participate thanks to direct support from the U.S. Embassy Skopje. The ARM’s participation is more than four times larger than usual for U.S.-sponsored exercises, and it is the largest in an exercise of this kind since preparing for the ARM’s co-deployment with the Vermont National Guard to Afghanistan in 2010.
ANAKONDA 16 is a Polish national exercise directly supported by U.S. Army – Europe (Germany) and NATO’s Multinational Corps-North East (Poland) and Land Component Command (Turkey). With nearly 31,000 soldiers from the Armed Forces of 24 NATO allies and partners, ANAKONDA 16 is the premier multinational exercise in 2016 and one of the largest in Europe in the past 25 years. Training involving multinational land, naval, air, and special operations will take place in training sites across Poland from June 7 to 17. ANAKONDA 16 is one of several multinational exercises leading up to the NATO Summit in Warsaw July 8-9.

By U.S. Embassy in Skopje | 6 June, 2016 | Topics: Exclude, Press Releases